Freedom Lessons

by Eileen Harrison Sanchez

  As she drove home, she struggled with her next steps. Ask Miguel? Of course he would say she shouldn’t take the children to the library anymore. Confide in her father? Both men would want to protect her by eliminating the trip and therefore the danger. Was it smart or cowardly to stop?

  Trust your gut. Take the warning, Colleen.

  This felt like the time she’d had a research paper for her sociology class in college. The professor had been intrigued by the topic. Colleen had planned to interview local realtors. The research question had been “What is the basis of the demographic profile of the residents in her hometown?”

  She remembered how confident she felt as she pulled up to the first realty office. That morning she wore her teacher interview clothes, a gray-and-white pin-striped gabardine suit. She had visited the library and found the census reports of the three towns bordering hers. She had the demographic information and statistics ready to back up her questions. A clipboard neatly held the questionnaires she had prepared.

  Her view of her town as full of kind and reasonable people was clouded by the fact that not one black individual lived in it. The most common black faces she saw there belonged to men hopping on and off the garbage trucks as they drove down the streets and the one Negro cashier at the town’s supermarket, where she worked part-time. He went to a local college like she did. He also brought in the carts from the parking lot and unloaded the trucks in the back of the store.

  The birds chirped on that bright, sunny April day as she walked up the landscaped concrete walk to the front door. There were four doorbells. Colleen pressed the one for Hometown Realty. A middle-aged woman wearing a shirtwaist dress buttoned up tight opened the door. Her dark red lipstick appeared freshly applied, and Colleen noticed a spot on her teeth when she smiled.

  “Good morning. We’re just opening. Do you have an appointment?”

  Colleen shifted the clipboard when she noticed the woman’s eyes drift to it.

  “No, I’m a student at Teachers College, and I’m taking a survey. Are you the realtor?”

  “No, I’m a secretary. Why don’t you come in, and I’ll ask the owner to speak to you?”

  Colleen waited in the center of the office and tried to appear professional. The secretary hurried into an adjacent room. After a few minutes, a man came out to speak to her.

  “Well, young lady, I understand that you have some questions for a school project?”

  “Not a school project, but a survey that’s part of a research paper for one of my college classes. It won’t take very long. I’ll just ask a few questions and take some notes.”

  “What is the topic?”

  Colleen wished he would ask her to sit so that she could take notes. Her purse kept slipping off her shoulder when she held the clipboard to write on it.

  “It’s a study of the community as an example of suburban life, which appears to exclude Negroes, when compared with adjoining communities.”

  The realtor turned to speak with the secretary, who was now seated at a desk. The secretary’s eyes widened as he asked, “What is my appointment schedule this morning?”

  She flipped through the calendar and answered, “You’re booked till three.”

  Colleen looked around. No one else was there.

  “I’m sorry, but I really don’t have time. Perhaps you can give me the questionnaire and come back later?”

  She had no choice if she wanted the survey answered. Colleen shook his hand with a firm grip as she handed him the questionnaire. The realtor adjusted his glasses and shook his head as he glanced at it.

  By the time she walked up the path to the third realty office, she knew that word had spread. A kindly gentleman met her at the door and suggested that she could get all of her questions answered if she went to see the person whose name and address were written on the index card he held out for her. She recognized the address. It was a Protestant church near her home.

  As she recalled the meeting with the minister, Colleen could still feel his resistance cloaked in sincerity. He wanted to know if she was having trouble at home, if she worked with a group, if other students had surveyed the other towns. He didn’t answer any of the survey’s questions. None of the realtors did either.

  Then Colleen remembered the reason the black cashier had quit working at the supermarket. It was after the second time he’d been stopped by police, who had demanded to know why he’d been driving through town after dark, going home from the job. Now, in a curious reversal, it was her turn: stopped because a white woman shouldn’t be driving through the black section of town. The black cashier had quit with the comment “This isn’t the mountain I want to die on.”

  Remembering his statement helped her to decide. The risk was real and involved more than her. She wouldn’t take the children to the library anymore.

  Chapter 25

  Evelyn

  Wednesday, November 26, 1969

  After Evelyn delivered Annie Mae’s message to Colleen, she worried that someone would see her leaving. It was almost five o’clock, and in the short days of November, the setting sun cast shadows that made her nervous. She walked around to the front of the school, where her car was parked. A light from inside the main office fanned out shards of light like a flashlight in the dark.

  It must be Mr. Peterson. Just like at West Hill.

  She considered stopping in to talk to him, like she’d enjoyed doing in the past. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching from inside the school. Maybe the light wasn’t from Peterson’s office. Maybe it wasn’t he; after all, it was a shared space.

  Nothing was the same.

  When she was seated in her car, she leaned back, breathing in the cool air of the late-fall day. She hurried home, worrying the whole way.

  A knock on the back door interrupted Evelyn as she prepared her supper. The key to open the dead bolt was on a hook hidden by the gingham curtains. Evelyn lived alone at the end of a quiet street. She didn’t get many uninvited visitors in the evening, and fewer still at the back door. After school, the children sometimes played in the wooded fields near her small house but they never crossed through the fencing that protected her garden or through the gate to the back of the house.

  Evelyn switched on the light over the stoop. She was relieved to see Annie Mae Woods holding a basket covered with a red-and-white-checked cloth. A stained apron over her housedress was a surprise. It was unusual to see her friend look unkempt.

  Evelyn released the dead bolt and then the latch to the screen door and invited Annie Mae inside.

  “I could smell those famous biscuits of yours right through this door. How is one person going to eat all of them? Come in, come in.”

  As she stepped over the threshold, Evelyn heard a sigh as Annie Mae handed the basket to her. “These are some extras I made for our Thanksgiving dinner. I saw you as you drove past my house; it’s after dark tonight. You had a long day. It’s late to be fixing a meal—thought you could use something easy. I’m guessing you spoke to Miz Rodriguez, like I asked.”

  “My, my, but you don’t give yourself a chance to rest, Annie Mae. Yes, I told her. No need to worry about me, but I do appreciate the company tonight.”

  “Frank is home, helping Rachel with some homework, and Sissy is playing with Baby James. It seemed like a good time to talk a bit, if you don’t mind.”

  “Sit yourself down, now; we can talk over tea and biscuits while I finish warming up this chicken stew from yesterday. I have plenty. Do you want some?”

  “Just some tea, thank you.”

  Evelyn took out her favorite teapot, the china one with the purple-and-green wisteria painted over the bone-white background. Aunt Dorothy had given it to her when she’d graduated from college. Evelyn smiled as she lifted it up and noticed the blue imprint on the base. It had a ribbon with a crown over the name of the manufacturer: SADLER—MADE IN ENGLAND. She was convinced that the tea brewed in that pot tasted the best. Evelyn was pleased to be able t
o use the matching cups, saucers, and dessert plates for her company. They didn’t really match, and they weren’t made in England, but she pretended they were.

  The teapot reminded Evelyn of her aunt’s courage. Sometimes she thought if she drank enough tea from that pot, it would give her the fortitude she wished she had. Her aunt and uncle had met at Hampton Institute in Virginia. Aunt Dorothy had been the first of her mother’s sisters to go to away to college at a time when it was difficult for any woman, especially a Negro woman, to be allowed to live away from home. Her family believed in schools for Negroes. Education was foremost, not integration. Her uncle believed in both. Aunt Dorothy tried to convince her Virginian husband to come back with her to Louisiana, but he had his sights set on setting up a restaurant in Houston with some of his classmates, and that was what they did. She became a teacher, and he was a businessman. They were part of a group of educated and successful Negroes. The group pressured the businesses in their community to accept integration, and those that didn’t were faced with scornful stories and photos from Negro writers and photographers. Her aunt then led the group to work with some determined white librarians to quietly desegregate the Houston Public Library in 1953.

  Evelyn thought back to the day her library opened.

  They put the chairs on the lawn.

  “Evelyn, you haven’t said a word to me since you asked me if I wanted to eat some chicken stew.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. This library thing with Colleen has me thinking of my aunt.”

  “What does your aunt have to do with it?”

  “Annie Mae, you know how some white folks were thinking that Miz Rodriguez was getting signatures? They don’t care if she’s helping us get library cards or signing us up to vote—it’s all the same to that kind in this town.”

  Evelyn checked the color of the steeped tea and poured the first cup for Annie Mae. She laid a biscuit drizzled with honey on the plate and gave her friend a lace-trimmed cloth napkin.

  “Don’t you remember what happened the day our library opened, Annie Mae? It wasn’t that long ago … Well, maybe it’s been ten years, but it seems like yesterday to me.”

  “Ten years ago, I had three youngins—Frank was eight, Sissy was four, and Rachel was just born—and no time to care about a library being built.”

  “Those uppity white women you iron for took the chairs out of the library so that we couldn’t sit at the tables. They had a read-in.”

  “A read-in?”

  “Yes, like the ones in Alabama. I just wanted to have a good library and some new books. But they were so worried about their books, they didn’t want us to come inside. I heard one of them say they didn’t want to touch a book that a colored hand had touched.”

  Or sit on a chair still warm from me.

  “Who said that?”

  “The same one causing trouble for Colleen, Rita Harper. The one with that cop husband. He was the one who stopped her.”

  “I don’t iron for her.”

  “No, but you work for her friends, and they sure stick together, don’t they?”

  Evelyn realized that Annie Mae wasn’t paying much attention to her. Of course she knew what a read-in and a sit-in and even a freedom ride were. Something else must be wrong. Her face was drawn, her eyes were clouded, and Annie Mae looked like she had when the sorrow of losing her husband had almost taken her.

  “Annie Mae, what’s wrong? I know you were worried about Rachel and your nephew Jarrod going to the library, but I told Colleen why you aren’t going to send them, so we just have to wait and see what she does. It’s up to her.”

  “No, it’s not that—it’s Frank.”

  Evelyn knew how much Annie Mae counted on Frank since he was now the man of the family. She lifted the teapot to pour them both another cup of fortitude.

  “Tell me. It’s my turn to listen to you.”

  “He’s getting into trouble. Came home with a bloody shirt stashed inside his bag. Didn’t want me to see it. He won’t tell me what happened.”

  “But you talked with Mr. Peterson after they walked out of the school. Wouldn’t he call you in?”

  “No, I don’t think it happened at school. I don’t know what to do. He’s been wandering around after school, letting me think he was at practice. When I found the bloody shirt, he got angry and told me that he gave up football practice since he can’t play. He hates being second string. He’s upset because he can’t play in the Thanksgiving game tomorrow.”

  Evelyn reached over and placed her hand on Annie Mae’s. Nothing was the same.

  Chapter 26

  Colleen

  Thursday, February 5, 1970

  “I missed you so much at Christmas, my heart aches. I’m all thumbs this morning. Oh yeah—it’s Saturday, January thirty-first. This will be quick. I have to get this tape to the post office today. So let me pretend that it’s February fifth.

  “Happy birthday, Colleen! Hope you are enjoying a warm and, of course, snow-free day. It’s been so cold here. The wind makes it feel like below zero. Please send me more news about your students. I expect that you have everything under control by now. It’s hard to believe that I had to send your posters and the wall alphabet. Why can’t they get those for you? I’m glad to help—you know that. Anything else? I love you. Signing off. Dad.”

  Colleen shut off the tape player, knowing she would play the message again later to relish the sound of his voice. The cassette had arrived just on time. It was the second kindness of the day, but neither one lifted her spirits for more than a moment. She put the tape player away. What could she tell him? Today she was frayed around the edges. If anyone pulled the thread, she would unravel.

  Her eyes drifted over to the counter. Now, that was a real surprise—a cake. Colleen had saved the last piece of birthday cake for Miguel. She recalled the confusion when she opened the classroom trailer door as she and her students had returned from lunch.

  “Miz Rodriguez, look. There’s a cake on your desk. A big cake!” Linkston shouted.

  As she tried to understand what he was telling her, the children all rushed past her and squeezed around her desk. She froze when she saw Cynthia lift a large knife.

  “Cynthia! Stop!”

  Cynthia turned with the knife still in her hands. “It’s to cut the cake, Miz Rodriguez.”

  “Children, please! Sit at your desks.”

  “Let me see … What is this?”

  “Cynthia, put the knife down.”

  Colleen saw Cynthia’s chin tremble and her eyes fill up as she set the knife on the desk.

  “I was trying to help, Miz Rodriguez.”

  “Why is there a cake on your desk?” Jarrod asked.

  “Children, children, you must sit down.”

  “Cake? Can we have a piece?”

  “Do you have ice cream?”

  Only a few students had listened to her. She couldn’t get near the desk because they filled the narrow rows. She was beyond frustration; it was stuffy in the trailer, and she couldn’t reach the air conditioner. It would circulate some air, and the drone would muffle the commotion.

  “If you are not in your seats by the time I count to three …”

  What? Colleen, what? What will you do?

  “One … two … three.”

  Most of the children scattered and sat down, but Jarrod still hovered near her desk, looking at the cake.

  Is he licking his finger?

  “Jarrod! God d … bless America.”

  I almost said damn. For crying out loud, calm yourself, Colleen.

  Colleen watched as Jarrod finally moved to take his seat. She couldn’t understand what had just happened. Chaos? Over a cake? On her birthday? Who could have done this? She hadn’t told anyone, as far as she could remember.

  As the children moved away, she was finally able to stand behind her desk. Four rows of faces stared back at her. Then she looked at the cake. It was amazing. It appeared to be at least three layers and bigger than a dinner pla
te. The icing was in fluffy yellow peaks, spaced neatly around the circumference. The “knife” wasn’t a knife, at least not a sharp one, as it had appeared from the other side of the room. It was a pointed cake server with a china handle. A pile of napkins lay next to a note.

  “Happy birthday, Colleen, from Evelyn.”

  Evelyn?

  At least the children had stopped clamoring. What should she do now? Thirty pairs of eager eyes gave her the answer.

  She cut the cake and served it on the napkins. The afternoon was lost. She read them books and let them color on the special manuscript lined paper that she had finally managed to get from the stockroom.

  Her father thought she had everything under control. Evelyn had made her a cake. It was all too much to take in. The cake was to have been a treat, but it had only made the students harder to manage. Her father’s message should have cheered her, but all the confidence she’d had back in August had disappeared.

  Thirty children came to her every day with hope on their faces. But the pride they’d had in their classroom back at West Hill School was fading as well. Winter in Louisiana meant that they wore light sweaters or maybe jackets. There was no place to keep those garments except on the backs of their chairs. When they pushed in their chairs for reading group, a sweater sometimes fell off and then someone stepped on it. Or it got stuck on the desk because the space was too tight, and they cried that their mama would be mad if it ripped.

  The cramped space, the lack of materials, and five hours inside an air-conditioned trailer without windows was challenging, to say the least. Not being able to use the library trips as an incentive exhausted Colleen’s spirit further.

  So, give them a piece of cake, let them color away the afternoon. Did it matter? Did anything she was doing matter? Three months in this box already, four more to go. She wondered how she would last.